


One-Thousand Petals (but only one flower)

by sammyspreadyourwings



Series: Life Stages of Love and Roses [2]
Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Childhood, Childhood Memories, Coming of Age, Dork Lovers Server Challenge, Dorks in Love, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Language of Flowers, Minor Character Death, Minor Original Character(s), Mostly Gen, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Relationships, Platonic Soulmates, Polyamory, Romantic Friendship, Romantic Soulmates, can read a character as aromantic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-19 21:22:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18978607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sammyspreadyourwings/pseuds/sammyspreadyourwings
Summary: Everyone has at least three flowers: soul, mind, and heart. John figures out how to love without any flower telling him how he should.





	One-Thousand Petals (but only one flower)

**Author's Note:**

> If any of y'all could tell me what this is that'd be great. Because I genuinely have no idea where it came from but now I have Ideas (tm). Also Pairings are super ambiguous. Anyway, meanings at the end but I tried to make them clear in the story. I finished this in less than fifteen hours, please forgive me for any mistakes or stylistic issues.  
> Additionally, me writing something John-centric? It's more likely than you think.  
> ((I wrote this while listening to Jealous by Labrinth if you want mood music))  
> I might've wrote this hardcore thinking about aromantic!john, but that's def up to the reader.  
> Okay, I'm done talking, go enjoy!

The first three flowers a child receives are meant to be the soul, the mind, and the heart.

In the center of John’s chest, minutes after he’s born, blooms bright amaryllis. It’s a bold statement and a warning wrapped in one. Seconds later a red columbine blooms on the back of his neck. After minutes of waiting, the third blossom doesn’t appear. The Flower Reader assures the room that it’s perfectly normal for a baby’s heart to not settle immediately.

Then she cheerfully announces that John is going to be a beautiful but nervous soul.

At seventeen John will translate that into “he’s going to be a nervous wreck but at least he’s cute.”

* * *

There’s only one other kid in his year one class that has two flowers. Her name is Elizabeth and a yellow rose curls around her neck a perfect mirror to her infectious joy. John takes to wearing his collar slightly raised to cover the drooping bud. He tries to not stare too hard at the wrists of the other kids.

It isn’t long before he and Elizabeth (“It’s Lizzy!”) take solace in only each other’s company. Kids, as kind as they can be, listen to their parents. Parents that are quick to condemn two bloom children as trouble-children and some take it far enough to declare them heartless.

John is also quick to rise to the teacher’s attention as an “advanced student” since he’s able to pick up reading and basic arithmetic faster than most of the other kids in his class.

“What a clever boy, you are John,” he says with surprise and a glance to his bare wrist.

As though not being told how he’ll love makes him less capable than any other person.

Walter is the only one who can beat him in raising his hand but then the purple columbine lets everyone know that he wants to win. Instead of fighting for top spot John preens at every worksheet that comes back with full marks, even he doesn’t screech it to the entire world.

He doesn’t want to be the center of anyone’s attention.

* * *

Once John asked his mom what the purpose of flower-readers are if everyone understands what the flowers mean.

“We all know what an individual flower means,” she says softly, “but not many of us can put all of them together and understand a person.”

“Why do we have the flowers?”

At that, his mother shrugs, “that’s just the way it is.”

John buries his third question of why he only has two, afraid his mother’s gentleness has a limit. He supposes that means that he can just keep his heart to himself and not have someone judge him based on what plants have etched themselves into his skin. Instead, he thinks about the man who had four flowers on his arm.

“How come people can have more than three?”

“They’re just more complicated or they’ve had a lot of life happen that needs to be explained.”

He really wonders if it’s everyone business what he goes through in life.

“Now, I do believe it’s time for bed, upstairs. Wash quickly and I’ll read you a story.”

* * *

At thirteen he and Lizzy have different homerooms. Not that they talk much anymore, Lizzy’s wrist-flower finally bloomed when she was ten (a fickle strand of pink larkspur), and in that same innocently cruel way of children, she was welcome back to the fold. John still doesn’t have his. He wears the thick-banded watch his dad got him for his birthday.

A week into year eight, John has already deemed it the worst year of his life, he gets a call to go to the dean’s office. He _thinks_ this is just another meeting to try and get him into the after-school program for “two flower trouble children” as though he’s not acing every class and never once had detention.

He’s met with a solemn frown instead of smug neutrality.

“Your mom is coming to pick you up,” he says.

John rubs the bloom on the back of his neck, a fitting tick that his dad keeps trying to break him of.

_“No use in showing people you’re nervous when both of your flowers tell them.”_

“Your dad’s been in an accident and he’s been taken to the hospital.”

His stomach drops to the floor and his fingers dig into his chest. He wants to scream or cry but he can’t decide on what he’d rather do, so he starts shaking in the leather-backed chairs.

“I’m sorry,” the dean offers, “I’m sure the doctors are doing all they can.”

John shakes in time to the ticking of the grandfather clock and waits for his mom and holds desperately onto the hope that his dad will be fine. They were supposed to go fishing this weekend and his dad never breaks a promise.

 _This might be the first,_ he thinks when he sees the blooming marigold flower on his mom’s forearm and a slightly more sincere “I’m sorry” from the dean.

His own marigold blooms on the curve of his hip during the Lord’s Prayer (which he leads with trembling knees and sweaty palms) at the funeral service, and looking at his mother’s daffodil covered wrist it’s the first time he’s glad he doesn’t have a flower dictating how he’ll love.

He picks up a bass guitar a month after that and then never puts it down.

* * *

Fifteen brings him his first real group of friends. They dick around under the bleachers during gym, and they’re more interested in girls than what flowers are on their skin. After school, they break into James’ father’s liquor cabinet and buzzed on cheap wine they talk about their plans and somewhere between the end of the first bottle and in the middle of the second they start a band.

John is the only one of the band that has any real passion for music. The others like to play, but John can tell that this is just something to pass the time. His passion marks him as the “best” which he knows he is despite his inexperience, but it earns him his first girlfriend (but his first kiss belongs to one of the boys when they were both too drunk to really know what they were doing).

He thinks that the confusing feelings might be enough to finally plant whatever bloom his heart has to be dictated by. His wrist remains blank the entire eight months he dates Carol (pretty and blond and they looked good together but that’s all they had). John drinks with James the night that they break up.

“Fuck it, I don’t need a flower on my wrist,” he says once he’s well past what James has drunk.

“Yeah! It’s the decade of free love, man!”

* * *

John spends the rest of secondary school focusing on getting into a decent university. He plays “gigs” on the weekend (which is to say his band takes over someone’s garage and other students come for the alcohol and on several notable occasions the pot) and dates three more girls before graduation. Although he supposes he should count Lizzy, despite never officially dating they had an on-and-off again thing.

The closer adulthood creeps the more his stomach twists itself into knots. Every time he checks the mailbox for an acceptance letter he wants to throw up (which is not ideal considering he can only stomach one meal a day). He’s going to get into one of the universities he applied to, but the waiting is killing him.

His sister rolls her eyes every time she sees him slumped over electrical textbooks since he’s sure his professors are all going to give him pop quizzes on his first day.

“You’re going to be fine,” she says one night after dinner, “just promise me you’ll make better friends.”

She wrinkles her nose after that, “or at least join a better band.”

He laughs, “I’ll see what I can do. London has plenty of uni bands.”

“Find one that’s going to be famous,” Julie grins, “be the best bass player in the world since you already think you are.”

John waves her off, “at least in Leicester, I’m the best.”

Julie tilts her head in acknowledgment of the fact. His mother reenters the room, putting the back on her earring.

“I’m just going to book club at Maggie’s,” she says, “and John? Just remember you’re going to university to get a degree and not be a Rockstar.”

“Of course.”

His throat tightens every time he thinks about playing in front of a stadium of people. Bars and garages and small towns are one thing, but he’ll never be _famous._ He can’t imagine what people would say about his still bare wrists and how hard he’d have to try to keep his other flowers hidden.

Besides, it’s a longshot even if he wanted that.

* * *

The first week of university has him becoming well acquainted with the restrooms in the engineering building. He hid in them ten minutes prior to the lectures where he knew they were going to be doing a mini icebreaker.

_“John Richard Deacon and I was born on August 19, 1951.”_

_“How is that a fun fact?”_

_“You said fact, sir.”_

The blunder follows him to the weekend when it gets around to students other than the electrical engineering group. He’ll be glad when his year mates age into something a little more mature, that a small thing such as that doesn’t linger.

Instead of going out, he stays in with his books and bass. His neighbor bangs on the wall when he gets a little too carried away with the volume on his amp (which still doesn’t give him a sound he likes). He tosses on a Beatles album because nobody in uni can claim to not like them and be telling the truth and his neighbor blessedly leaves him alone.

It doesn’t stop him from tossing and turning throughout the night knowing he’s inconvenienced someone and that they probably hate him now. Then he starts to think about his introduction in class. Seven days into university and he already has the cracks on his ceiling memorized (that is until a piece of plaster breaks off and he vows to move into a better apartment by summer intermission).

Three Saturdays into his adult life, he finally works up the nerve to go to one of the student-frequented pubs. It promises a live band and half-priced beer, and he’s just learned that he aced that first-day pop quiz from one of his promising-to-be-awful classes. He owes it to himself (and the dumb promise he made with Julie about making friends). The band is lively and the guitarist is slightly out of tune, and it makes him itch because the bassist keeps falling out of the drummer’s rhythm.

Apparently, his kicked-puppy-starving-artist vibe (not his words) is enough to get the attention of a girl, and he leaves with a name and number. It isn’t a total loss.

He calls the girl Sunday afternoon and they meet up for a coffee and because he’s a gentleman he walks her home and leaves with nothing more than a chaste kiss. A second date is off because she’s done nothing but stare at his blank wrists and he knows well enough to stay away from the burden of being with someone with a forget-me-not flower.

That kind of true love is meant for fairy tales and rock n’ roll ballads.

On the bus back to his apartment, he sees a woman with twin wrist flowers of lady’s slipper and lavender. She has a beautiful smile, and John finds himself smiling back. He doesn’t catch her name, but considering she looked about his age she has to attend one of the local universities. He’s drawn to her in some inexplicable way, and the way her heart says she knows how she deserves to be loved.

“Mommy, how come that man doesn’t have no flowers on his wrist?” A young boy says too loudly.

And through the mouth of babes, his fascination fades and he tugs his jumper down. He’ll have to find a new watch, the one from his father broke during the move.

* * *

John is tired of being nineteen and bitter.

That’s how he finds himself in the auditorium of the music building at Imperial college clutching a yellow flier in his hands. Well, he’s not really in the auditorium but outside of it, and this had been a last-minute decision. The flyer had flown into his face on his way back from repairing his bass. He’s not one to believe in fate, but there was a tug in his heart too sharp to ignore.

Now he’s hoping that they’ll agree to at least hear him play because they had been packing up.

“Let’s hope you’re worth it,” says the drummer when he opens the auditorium doors.

John assumes he’s the drummer because he’s carrying around the sticks. His hair covers the flower on his neck and there are too many bracelets for John to get a clear look at his wrist flower. It’s unnerving as much as it is refreshing. He follows the drummer and spots the other two band members arguing by the table.

“Oy, let’s hear him,” the drummer calls, “I’m missing dinner with Shannon for this.”

“Is Shannon the red-head?”

John tries to look anywhere but the man’s mouth, his mother would scold him for being so rude.

“No,” the last member shakes his head, “Shannon is the brunette from his biology class. Going to steal her notes, Rog?”

“As if. She offered to pay for dinner.”

The second man laughs, “you’re worth dinner _and_ dessert at least.”

“No one asked you, Fred,” _Rog_ jumps on Fred.

John twists his hands on the handle of his case while he watches the two fall into a brief scuffle. The unnamed one sighs and shrugs seemingly apologetic.

“You were in such a hurry before,” he says.

Rog taps rapidly on the ground when Fred manages to pin him. John’s not entirely sure what happened, but had he been betting he would’ve put money on Rog if only because his outfit his more conducive to movement. John observes Fred for a moment, and then decides that so long as dressing like a… well like Fred… at all times wasn’t a requirement. Although Rog is dressed in a way that makes it hard to tell if he’s a man or woman from a distance, but the unnamed one is simply wearing slacks and a slightly billowy shirt.

“Okay, sorry about that dear,” Fred smiles, “what’s your name?”

“John Richard Deacon,” he winces.

Fred simply smiles, “I’m Freddie. The loud one is Roger, and Brian is shy.”

John bobs his head a little too eagerly but doesn’t miss the way Brian’s eyes drift to his wrist when they shake hands. Although, in a rare move, Brian returns his gaze to John’s face and smiles.

“Right, so we have our material with us,” Freddie claps his hand, “you’ll play that and we’ll go from there.”

“Okay,” he takes the offered paper.

Truthfully, he hasn’t seen anything like it before. That might be the point of being musicians, but his heart gives a nervous shudder at the thought of messing it up while his fingers start to twitch with the urge to play it. He’s grateful his bass is tuned and only needs to be plugged into the amp, his fumbling would get him kicked out of the audition for sure.

Then he finally gets to play it. The beat is fast and catchy, and he can only imagine what the guitar and vocals would be like. Roger is tapping along on the table with his sticks, twirling them while keeping a rolling rhythm.

“Now play us something of yours.”

His throat tightens. Sure, John has two songs that he played around with in secondary school when he thought that band could be something (before he heard them play together) but he’s never written anything for an audition like this. He doesn’t miss a beat and easily transitions into the first sequence that pops into his head. Compared to what he just played; this is a piece meant for a showy bass player.

In hindsight, not the best impression to give.

Although when he looks up from the neck of his bass and sees three matching grins, he puts it to the back of his mind. He doesn’t know these men, but he likes them. They tell him they’ll call him within the week.

* * *

John spends more time at Roger and Freddie’s (and basically Brian’s) flat than he does his own. It’s smaller and the faucets take forever to run, but it feels like a home. Something he’s been missing since coming to London. Most days after he finishes classes his feet automatically take him to the bus that will bring him to this flat. Roger and Freddie don’t mind, and he surprisingly doesn’t have the looming dread of overstaying his welcome.

It doesn’t take long before he learns his new bandmates (friends?) flowers.

He walks into the flat to see Roger studying at the coffee table. John raises an eyebrow, because a) Roger is studying willingly b) the heat is off but Roger doesn’t have a shirt on and c) he’s unfairly pretty.

“Brian bet me fifteen quid that I couldn’t get higher than an 80 on this test,” Roger greets, “since I haven’t been to lecture in a month.”

John frowns, “he should know better.”

His theory is that Brian does, but it’s the only way to get Roger in class some months (apparently). He drops his bag next to the chair and heads to the kitchen to raid the biscuit tin. John lingers in the opening between the living room and kitchen to observe. Roger’s hair is pulled into a ponytail, leaving clear a passionate yellow iris ringed by a barberry and buttercup twist. John snorts quietly unsurprised that Rog’s bad temper and childlike enthusiasm are important enough to come with warning labels.

Roger twists around with a curious expression. John waves it away and steps nearer to him stopping to dig out his own textbooks. He does take another second to look at the flowers on Roger’s chest. It’s not uncommon to have more than one flower on the “soul” part of the body, but he’s never seen two soul flowers. Twin hyacinths, playful pink and reliable blue, cover the spot over Roger’s heart.

“What?”

“It’s freezing in here,” John replies, “why don’t you have a shirt?”

“Because I spilled tea on the one I was wearing and I don’t have a clean one.”

“You could do laundry, occasionally.”

Roger shakes his head, golden strands falling from the scrunchie, “who has time for that?”

John flips to the page he needs, “every functioning adult?”

“Exactly!”

“You’re just insulting yourself,” he says.

“Maybe so, but that means I don’t have to do laundry as often as say, Mr. My-sock-drawer-color-coded Brian May.”

“Why?”  
Roger raises both arms in the air, “thank you! Freddie just thinks it’s cute.”

“Freddie thinks everything Brian does is cute,” John counters.

He steals one of Roger’s pencils as he reads the first question on the assignment sheet. It already makes him want to stab his eyes out. Roger slumps forward with a slight pout and knocks his textbook off the table.

“Don’t worry, Freddie finds you cute too.”

“I’m not just cute, I’m adorable!” Roger gasps mock offended, “how dare you.”

John laughs, “I’m sorry.”

His eyes drift over the page which makes circuit boards even more boring than they already are, and he ends up staring blankly at it. Roger has picked up his book but seems to be more interested in doodling butterflies on his study guide than reading. John bites his lip, but curiosity wins out and he looks for the flower mark on the drummer’s wrist. He’s surprised when he sees Spanish jasmine wrapping around a freesia bloom.

Only Roger Taylor would have innocence and trust wrapped in sensuality.

John thinks back to the girl in his class when he was in year eleven. She had Spanish jasmine as a bracelet and for whatever reason, most boys in school that they were entitled to her in some way. He wasn’t that surprised when he saw her start to wear thick bands or long sleeves.

Roger flicks him with a piece of an eraser. John blinks and then sighs, he has to bite his cheek to keep from smiling.

* * *

It’s not uncommon for him and Brian to end up cuddling (which should’ve been his first clue when he thinks back on his life). They’re both unofficial tenants, and on nights that both Freddie and Roger are home, they have to make do with the living room floor. No matter the time of year, the room will always be ridiculously cold.

John curls tighter into himself. His back against Brian’s, but tonight is colder than most (not really, but he was the last to shower and his hair is still damp). He huffs and pulls the blanket higher. Brian shifts behind him and there’s an arm across his hip. His cheeks heat up, but he’s warmer so he’s not going to complain.

“You know –“

He doesn’t groan, because it would be rude, but Brian’s speaking in the tone that means that he’s been thinking about something for a while and now he wants to talk about it.

“I have a red columbine too.”

“Yeah?” John says sleepily.

“Small of my back,” Brian replies.

John pushes back against Brian, looking for more heat, “does that count as mind or soul?”

“I’ve always thought it could be both.”

“Mm.”

Out of everyone, John would have guessed that Brian would be the least susceptible to the craze that goes with getting extra flowers (he would’ve put money on Freddie, and then lost it all). Then again, John has seen how he wears the lotus flower like a badge of honor. Not that he can be faulted for that, every great scientist has had a lotus on their body, a mark of intelligence. The solver of puzzles. Although if you as Roger, Brian embodies the third meaning of the flower as much as the main reason.

_“He just brightens a room, y’know?” Roger is watching Brian_

_“Not at all,” John sips on whatever fruity drink Freddie’s brought him._

_“Liar.”_

_“Yeah.”_

John has nearly fallen asleep, now that he’s not shivering, when Brian speaks again.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen your soul flower.”

“Probably not.”

He feels Brian nod. John closes his eyes again.

“I’m not a fan of mine either.”

John sighs and rolls over. He knows they’re edging into not exactly platonic cuddling territory, and he feels his stomach tremble with the thought. Then again, there’s a note in Brian’s voice that makes him react to it. He curls his fingers into the thin fabric of Brian’s shirt and listens to him breathe. It takes him a long time to figure out what to said instead of _I’m sorry._

“It happens,” he says.

Brian gives him a weird look, but then he’s sitting up. John sits with him, but sends Brian an unhappy look, because it’s not as warm now that they aren’t cuddled up to each other. It says a lot about the last seven months that he isn’t surprised when Brian takes off his shirt and throws it between them like a gauntlet.

It says a lot more when the challenge makes him mirror the action. He’ll say it's their competitive friendship (but John knows its because he didn’t want Brian to feel like he was the only one offering something in this friendship).

A willow branch covers the entirety of Brian’s sternum, and now John knows why Freddie gets a knowing look in his eyes when he calls Brian a “sad soul” and why Roger is so quick to comfort Brian. Lavender-tinted heather climbs up one side of his ribcage, solitary as usual, and white-budded ivy crawls up the other side reaching out to please.

John is quick to move onto the bouquet of zinnias nestled on Brian’s belly: white, magenta and yellow tell him of inherent goodness and that affection earned is affection that stays.

“We have matching zinnias,” Brian says a little breathlessly.

He looks down, having forgotten that at the year anniversary of his father’s death the little yellow zinnia had bloomed because he had thought about his father every day. John rubs it. At least Brian didn’t say anything about the amaryllis bloom, which is still mockingly bold.

Brian shivers and John raises an eyebrow.

“Mind if we continue bonding with our shirts on and under the covers?”

John doesn’t wait for an answer and grabs his shirt and pulls it back over his head, only to pause when it feels a little looser than normal.

“You stole my shirt,” Brian says.

“Whatever. I’m cold.”

Brian rolls his eyes and pulls on _John’s shirt,_ which he doesn’t admire because it’s cold and he’s tired and he’s going to get enough shit from Roger in the morning about this. He really can’t bring himself to regret showing Brian his soul flower.

* * *

Freddie is the hardest to pin down. John truthfully doesn’t care about knowing what the flowers and even if Freddie hid it for the rest of his life John wouldn’t make a fit about it. At first, he thought it was strange that outgoing and outrageous Freddie Mercury wouldn’t be bragging about his flowers. Then he realizes how shy Freddie is around intimacy and no crowd and it became less of a surprise.

He gets to see them one night while Roger and Brian were having their own night together, the two are inseparable most days so John doesn’t understand why they have to go off by themselves. It brings Roger’s manic energy down and makes Brian smile, so there’s obviously a reason.

Besides, it’s hard for him to get Freddie alone.

Freddie enters the room with no shirt. John is temporarily surprised, but then he sees the way Freddie is biting his lip.

“You don’t have to do this,” John says.

“You showed us, I didn’t want you to take offense.”

“I wouldn’t. Doesn’t matter to me if you don’t want your soul bared for the world to see.”

“I don’t care if the world sees, I want to know what _you_ think.”

At that John leans back and observes. For the first time, his eyes are drawn to the wrist, a bright yellow tulip (of course Freddie is a happy lover) is joined by a yellow poppy and a yellow iris. The yellow is a beautiful contrast not lessened by the flowers’ meaning of success and passion.

The least surprising part is the freesia that is higher up on the forearm but still manages to be part of the bouquet. John hasn’t ever thought of a flower mark being contagious before, but he checks his wrist superstitiously. Even Brian had one wrapping between the hopeful almond blossom and capricious purple carnation.

As it has been for the past twenty-one years, his wrist is blank.

He offers Freddie a warm smile before moving up his chest the magnificent calla lily is lifted by the impatient corchorus.

“I think I knew you before you showed me,” John says.

Freddie smiles wider than he usually would dare. John stands up and wraps his arms around Freddie in a loose embrace.

“I don’t think I needed any of you to show me the flowers.”

“And what if we had a Judas flower on our wrists?”

A long time ago, John thought it might be better to get deadly nightshade or a Judas branch rather than a blank wrist. Then he realized that he’d probably still be partnerless with those flowers as well.

“Then I suppose we’d have to figure out the betrayal if it happened.”

“You don’t put much stock into wrist flowers?”

John shrugs, “considering I don’t have one, and I still manage to love.”

Freddie drops his arms from where they were loosely holding the middle of his back to his hips. They sway to the song in Freddie’s head.

For the first time, John wonders if he doesn’t have a wrist flower because there’s no way to simplify the kind of love he feels for his bandmates. It’s somewhere between platonic and romantic, and it’s the sort of love that doesn’t _need_ anything else to be still be felt fifty years in the future.

* * *

John wakes up with hair in his mouth, that he sadly knows is Roger’s by mouthfeel. There’s a boney knee that belongs to Brian being pressed into his stomach, and Freddie’s breath tickles his ear. He shifts and that sends spikes of pain along his temple, his mouth is dry from the mixture of hangover and Roger’s hair. It’s a struggle, but eventually, he manages to free his arm pinned under Brian.

Despite it being numb from a lack of circulation, it hurts in a familiar way. John tightens his eyes before opening them. Roger had apparently remembered to close the blinds last night, so it isn’t too bright. There’s still enough light that he can make out a mark on his arm. _It could be a bruise from last night_ he barely remembers Roger knocking them over on the couch and his hand smacking the coffee table.

He pulls the hair from his mouth, and on closer inspection, the mark isn’t a bruise but a… _holy shit._ Freddie grumbles and rolls over, Roger falls into the space between them. John shakes his head and rubs the mark. When it doesn’t smear, he drapes it over his eyes.

It isn’t hard to fight the smile between the tightness in his chest and the queasiness from the booze. John lifts his arm up again. His wrist remains startlingly clear but an inch below that is a lattice of flora. Four phlox flowers form compass points around a cluster of freesia and spattered between that is a yellow tulip and an almond blossom.

Less because he’s curious and more because he needs air, John sits up and starts to maneuver his way to freedom. Brian just wiggles closer to Roger, and John is glad that they didn’t end up in either Freddie or Roger’s twin beds. Now standing he looks down at his sleeping companions. The smile is harder to fight this time because of the peace that slowly starts to fill the room. He imagines in coming days it’ll be harder to find given that they’re going to record their first album.

At least, that’s what he’ll tell them if they ask him about his happiness later. Right now though, he’s honest to himself. Phlox flowers have settled themselves on previously bare skin. He even makes out a tiny yellow tulip on Brian's and Roger’s arms and an almond flower happily hidden in the sea of yellow on Freddie’s arm.

John carefully steps over Brian with the goal of starting breakfast. They might not make it in the music industry, but that doesn’t matter so much. There’s love in their lives and even though John’s never been told how he’ll love by some cosmic blossom, it feels like he’s figured it out. A part of him wishes he could go back and spare his childhood the grief of thinking something is wrong with him.

Then again, it was a lot more fun figuring out how to love Roger’s energy and Brian’s sorrow and Freddie’s lust for life at the same time himself.

**Author's Note:**

> Well. That was something? Thanks for reading! As always let me know your thoughts in the comments below or come talk to me on tumblr! I used like, 6 different sources for the meanings so some may not line up with just what you google and I took creative liberties.
> 
> Meanings (in the order of appearance)
> 
> Amaryllis - Pride, Timidity, Splendid beauty  
> Columbine (red) - Anxious  
> Rose (yellow) - Joy  
> Columbine (purple) - Desire to win  
> Larkspur (pink) - Fickleness  
> Marigold - Grief  
> Daffodil - You're the Only One  
> Forget-me-not - True Love  
> Lady's Slipper - Win Me  
> Lavender - Loyalty, Love, Devotion  
> Iris (yellow) - Passion  
> Barberry - Bad Temper  
> Buttercup - Childness  
> Hyacinth (pink) - Playful  
> Hyacinth (blue) - Constancy  
> Spanish Jasmine - Sensuality  
> Freesia - Innocence, Trust, Friendship  
> Lotus - Intelligence, Illumination  
> Willow - Sadness  
> Heather (lavender) - Solitude, Admiration  
> Ivy (white buds) - Anxious to Please, Affection  
> Zinnia (white) - Goodness  
> Zinnia (magenta) - Lasting Affection  
> Zinnia (yellow) - Daily Remembrance  
> Tulip (yellow) - There's Sunshine in You Smile  
> Poppy (yellow) - Success, Wealth  
> Almond Blossom - Hope  
> Carnation (purple) - Capriciousness  
> Calla Lily - Magificent splendor  
> Corchorus - Impatient for Happiness  
> Phlox - Our Souls are United


End file.
